Story ~ Part of Being Human

Connect into the depth of our being human, our human-ness, as coach john dives deep into the power of our life journey and how we create limiting story and significantly, how we create and connect with story of meaning and sharing our heart, our whole-hearted experiences of life with each other.

The story has been the way of mankind before recorded history.

1:08 Story is the most powerful aspect of being human.
Indigenous people around the world have shared values of culture, the values of time, the ways we overcome difficulty, the ways we create family, community has always been held in the power of the story. Learn more about coach john’s huna training in Hawai’i, where he learned from the indigenous Hawai’ian people.

2:25 It’s very relevant. The privileged I had to be in a particular segment of that culture. I learned that there was no emotional unwellness recorded in Hawai’i previous to 1820.

4:08 The reason I liked it so much was it was more au currant to the power individuals had.
Not in a particular ideology but was brought in that individual people had wisdom and learning and could create incredible health and wellness and change, through story. They held this journey through story and story has been the way of mankind well before recorded history. It’s a different story of being human.

5:42 The power of story is how I wanted to start this, because the story holds both the conflict and the resolution in the same breath.
Isn’t that interesting? It holds both the conflict and the resolution inside itself!

7:06 Traditionally, we now use stories to validate, rationalize what we believe to be true, founded on an emotion.
We have an emotion, a feeling. It drives a thought. So we have this thought and we make up a story to support it. And we go looking for other stories to support it. It doesn’t matter whether the thought is true but we will find other stories that support our thought. We don’t say “what’s true, out there?”

7:53 We have a lot of Sufi wisdom that water is stronger than rock. Water over time wears away rock.
There are lots of stories we have out there that are what I call more “big T” truths, than “little t” truths. People have just enough of the truth of the story that it has some semblance of possibility, but it’s not all the story, it’s not the whole truth.

9:19 “It’s challenging because I actually have to listen beyond the parameters of my beliefs”

10:00 It’s not about “allowing”, it’s about hearing other people’s story without judgement and without the need to compare.
It’s very powerful and when we do that we’re really connecting to people at a very very deep level and that allows that story to unfold and to step back from it and say “what else?” “what else about that?”.

How do I know it to be true?
How do I know it to be really true?
What happens if it’s true?
What happens if it’s not true?
What is the turn around question to make it work?

10:33 It’s pretty important to know that the story is the entry point
it’s the launching pad, it’s the runway for the aircraft to take off, it’s where we meet up, in our collective universe. It’s in the story.

The story can be freeing, opening. Leading us to curiosity and exploration, to newness, to possibilities, to choice, to freedomOr
it can be constricting, where we’re in the old heirarchical model of judgement, assessment, blaming, shoulda, coulda, woulda, all those things that take us down and limit us. Where the choice is finite.If
we go over to the opening story, we’re into infinite choices, we’re into infinity. Unlimited possibility, unlimited choice.

13:07 So how did we step, like you did, to go to England? How did I step when I went to Tibet? In my mind?
I did to get there – but really- to end up in Nepal and India from a little farm kid of 14 people in a rural community to a whole new culture, a whole new language, a whole new understanding? That, you couldn’t make sense of.

13:37 We don’t know what’s coming and stories keep us safe and protect us, until they don’t.
Then we choose to say “not enough!” “It’s not me, it’s not complete!” But one day you come face to face with your story.

14:44 We have resolved within the conflict program a way of helping people define their story.
The gift we bring to the program is that if you can define your story in 10 words or less – you will have gotten closer to the element that you need to resolve, or partner with, or evolve from.

16:00 We found out, by using what I call subtractive process, by getting the words less…
that edits out most of, if not all of the words that hold judgement, blame, guilt, comparison, shame, woulda, coulda, shoulda – assessment. All that stuff – that hits us inside, that makes us more fearful and doesn’t let us risk.

16:34 If you can stay to 10 words and we refine it 3-4X, we get down to the 1 element, …
that 1 thing, that drove you to go to England without being able to name it. You don’t have so much to name it – it starts with a feeling, right? It whispers in your ear and it touches you here somewhere and you have a feeling… and you get there and you’re not even sure what you’re there for, but you’re there. And just that process, it starts… and you don’t even know it until your back!

18:02 “I’ve been on this journey… you should know about it… and if you really knew…
But in truth you never gave it that thought while you were in the process. It was just you, being you. It’s very hard to share that coming of age – that coming aligned – and too many just look at the story as gift wrapping, they never get inside the depths of you. The story is just a representation. That’s the nature of being human, of story, very powerful, but it’s yours, and yours alone.

Please share a comment below.
How have you been able to move from stories of limiting beliefs into the magnificent story of your own life journey?